i can't find the words

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

It seems as though I can’t write about happy things, or, at the very least, I don’t. In any case, I eventually read back over things I’ve written (or have them read aloud to me, in the extreme, embarrassing case), for the paper and not, and I hate myself. I can hardly deal with the whining, the angst and the anger.

All I have to say to myself is, “Big deal!”

My car broke down and then was towed and eventually burgled — I should be thankful to own a car.

My summer was not what I had hoped for — I still have many happy memories of months spent at a vacant Lehigh.

My turtle serves as a metaphor for all that is wrong in my life — I have a pet turtle, and he is a stud.

So, big deal to these things.

And not only do these clouds have silver linings, but there are a multitude things going on in my life I should be genuinely happy about. So, to make this an obligatory cheerful column, here are a few:

After taking the LSAT this weekend, I am skipping two days of class and going home for Pacing Break for the first time in four years. My dad and I are going to sit close to the stage when Pearl Jam and Death Cab for Cutie play at the Fox Theatre, and we’ll try to see some playoff baseball, too.

In the past two weeks, I’ve been to four concerts in four different, awesome places — Penn’s Landing, Irving Plaza, Zoellner Arts Center and the Wildflower Café. All of these were good shows, and a couple were fantastic. For complaining about never having time to do fun stuff, I seem to be getting out a lot.

I have a ton of CDs. If I didn’t keep them in alphabetical order (and then chronological within each band’s catalog), I would keep them in piles simply so I could claim to have literal piles of CDs. They’re useful, too: I can open my window and turn up the speakers in an attempt to educate the townsfolk, I can lend music to people who need to hear it, I can stay up until 5 a.m. and make bizarre mixes or I can simply marvel at the fact that I can listen to music for 10 days straight without hearing the same thing twice.

My car — bruised, broken and muddy as it looks — now runs. I was tempted to cruise around town last weekend, but I drove it straight to a mechanic to ensure that I’ll have it for years to come. And sure, there’s no way to listen to music, but I have been practicing my humming and a cappella skills.

The Lehigh police held a fund-raiser at Jazzman’s Café last week — a fund-raiser that involved raffle tickets. I purchased three such slips of paper and dropped them into a bucket where the odds of winning were nearly one in 1,000. I won twice. The gift certificate to BridgeWorks is nothing special, but I’m at a loss for what to do with my one-night stay in a whirlpool suite at the Comfort Suites. Right now, I’m leaning toward the “crazy hotel party” option (unless I find a lady friend to take out for a night of opulence).

Speaking of lady friends, fall just started. This means that girls, if they haven’t already, will soon start wearing scarves and hats and, possibly, mittens. With this added to the falling leaves and gorgeous sunsets, I’ll be smitten.

While the weather’s still warm, you can usually find me at the Campus Square square. Although there are complaints of this area being overcrowded, it’s nice to sit outside in the afternoon and say hi to every other person who walks by — I can be popular without having to be a star high-school quarterback.

My class schedule allows for this leisure time; I have nothing from Thursday afternoon until Tuesday morning. I’ve taken advantage of a less-than-rigorous senior year, obviously, and I’m loving it.

Now that I’ve written it down, there are relatively few things to be upset about. I just need to sit outside and relax more often.

I have things to say; I’m stretched so thin and I have things to say about it. But this is not the place, and I’m not sure I even know how to say them. I don’t even know if there’s an appropriate venue for my thoughts, a Bowery in which to spew out anything I can concentrate on for more than a moment.

And I don’t really know if anyone should know, or wants to.

A week ago this morning, I woke up particularly early to take the GRE. I’m undecided about what to do after I graduate, so I figure a standardized test or two (the LSAT next month) can’t hurt. Add a Monday night spent studying word lists — honestly, who cares what puerile means? — to a Tuesday morning pre-sunrise alarm setting and you’ll see that I was not in a good mood. In fact, I was still half asleep as I drove to Allentown.

Thus, when my CD player stopped working a few miles from the testing center, I cursed and pushed buttons indiscriminately. At the next stoplight, the absence of Pavement’s “Terror Twilight” allowed me to hear the engine make an odd sound; I decided the best course of action would be to restart my car. This was a bad choice.

Nothing happened when I turned the key. Save for a few clicks and flashing lights, my beloved 18-year-old BMW was dead. Flustered, I got out of the car and called people until I found someone to deliver me to the test center. It took me a minute to calm down, and I then tried to get some assistance pushing the now-worthless hunk of metal out of the street.

Except for a rotund, aging state constable, no one stopped. He and I struggled to push my car into the bottom of an uphill driveway, but that was the extent of his usefulness. Even though I was waving and jumping (and my car was still partially blocking the road), no one was decent enough to help.

Salvation came in a Chevy Lumina and I had to hop in. Academics won this battle; I had to cross my fingers and hope the best for my car.

Two hours (and a 1430) later, I started to walk back to where I had broken down. My ride from before met me somewhere in between and let me have the bad news: The driveway where I’d left the car belonged to a school, and the school had me towed. Negative dollar signs flashed before my eyes, but I had class to think about.

I spent the afternoon in Allentown signing papers and having people look at my driver’s license, all in the name of getting my car released. It wouldn’t take a jumpstart, though, so it had to spend a night in the impound lot before it could be towed home.

That should be the end of the story. No one would help move my car out of the way, and therefore I hate everyone involved in the process.

But no. There’s more: My car did not come back to me Wednesday. I was getting antsy Thursday, but, sure enough, the tow truck found my house late in the afternoon. I had to recruit help to get my car into a parking spot (the tow truck driver explained that he had a heart attack last week and was not going to be any help) and I graciously overlooked the mud-caked wheels, doors, floor – well, the whole thing, really — because I was happy to have it back.

I shook the driver’s hand and he left.

I got in the car to grab my belongings. I was going to attempt to remove the CD from the CD player when I realized that, instead of a CD player, my car now featured a gaping hole with some yellow, red and blue wires sticking out. I ran down the street in a vain attempt to catch the driver.

After calling the towing yard and yelling and crying and hanging up, I pondered: They had had my key. None of my windows were broken. Therefore, my car was left unlocked. Sure, on Tuesday I signed a release form that freed the company from “responsibility for loss or damage by theft … beyond [its] control,” but I determined that simply locking the doors would’ve been a theft deterrent.

Subsequent calls to the lot’s manager have not been returned. I think they are giving me the ol’ runaround.

So, I hate people. I hate the people who did not help push my car. I hate the people who reported it to the police. I hate the towing people who towed it to the impound lot. I hate the towing people who didn’t bring me my car when they were supposed to. I hate the person who stole my CD player. A lot. I hate the towing people who didn’t have a secure lot. I hate the towing people who didn’t lock my doors. I hate the towing people who refuse to talk to me. I hate I hate I hate.